Silent Hunter IV Hands-on

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Welcome to the war.

By Dan Adams

When it comes to simulations, Silent Hunter has a good history. After the third title in the series, the upswing was in full effect and a fourth title was basically guaranteed. Considering the age of stellar visuals that we're currently in and the advances made in both physics and interface design, there are a lot of expectations for Silent Hunter IV. After playing a recent build at Ubisoft's offices here in San Francisco, Ubisoft Romania certain seems to be navigating the waters fantastically. Our time was limited with this early build, but it worked well, was fun, and had some of the most fantastic water battles we've seen in games.

Silent Hunter IV undoubtedly has the best water effects we've seen lately. The motion of the ocean is simulated and the wakes generated by the ships cruising around the game environment are as good as any. It certainly doesn't hurt that the ships riding the water are packed with detail as well. Every turret, radar dish, cabin, viewing deck, and sailor is modeled with care. While the post processing effects added to some of the previous screens may create a slightly skewed view of how the game looks running, the models are absolutely as detailed as any of the shots shown to date.

As you would expect from a submarine simulator, anything under the water has to be as believable as anything above it. Thankfully, refraction, lighting, and all of the other tricks used underwater create a completely believable and creepy environment that adds to the stress of wartime gameplay. Seeing submarines slide past a sinking battleship on the way to a new target elicits quite the predatory feeling. Any torpedoes released towards the enemy can be followed by a free-camera (unless the game is set to pure simulation where players can't leave the confines of their sub) all the way to impact. It takes a small bit of skill since there's no torpedo cam that locks to the shot, but seeing the torpedoes strike home after a well timed shot is worth it. Huge holes open up in the belly of surface bound ships. Some ships, such as the Yamato (which we actually managed to sink) take quite a few more hits to send to the bottom, but a couple of torpedo hits will often break a ship in half, which can be a proud moment.

Weapons effects, explosions, and the like are all given attention as well. While players will be out to sea in a submarine all the way through the campaign, they'll be fighting alongside several other ships in the US Navy, including aircraft carriers. All the while players are hunting prey from below the surface, fighters, bombers, carriers, battleships, destroyers, cruisers, and transports will be slugging each other in the face. Decks will catch fire, planes will crash, and weapons will be a constant din.

The inside of the submarine, however, will be quiet as can be. The command room in the sub are excellent as well, though it's a bit easier to do here with less processing limitations. The camera can be panned around to look in several directions and access different interfaces though any of them can also be accessed via keyboard shortcuts.

Lastly the developers have spent much time modeling not only the ships and water involved in such critical naval battles, but the bases as well. We were treated to a tour of Midway and it held a surprising amount of detail considering the small lack of any gameplay associated with it aside from docking.

The presentation of the campaign is quite strong as well, using many of the tan and blue colors often associated with the Pacifc Theater of World War II. Each of the mission briefings included some terrific sequences showing the basic information regarding enemy troop movements. At the time of the WW2, that intel tended to change pretty dramatically from the time it was delivered to when an attack or ambush took place so players can expect to get some surprises during some of the missions.

The developers are hoping to keep those missions interesting for fans of the series by throwing some curveballs and creating hectic environments. Players also may be given different missions depending on effectiveness in combat. Thankfully the game will begin slowly and work up to some very difficult large scale engagements including many AI controlled ships. There are more than a few difficulty settings as well so players can adjust how simmy they really want to get.

The first mission we were sent on involved shooting down a convoy of supply ships heading to Japan. This particular mission was more of a warmup than anything else. These slower ships weren't equipped with much weaponry and were easy prey allowing us to get familiar with ship controls and firing mechanisms.